We've got a new episode of Wowhead Weekly today, as well as some big weekend news that Blackrock Foundry, top Apexis Gear, and Stage 4 crafted gear is getting a +5 ilvl increase in an upcoming hotfix! \r\r\rWowhead Weekly\rWowhead Weekly is back for another show! We're back to livestreaming the shows on Friday afternoons as Olivia is back in the USA. Wowhead Weekly is a World of Warcraft podcast with Wowhead Site Manager Perculia and Olivia, where they discuss all things Warlords of Draenor, Wowhead, and more! You can subscribe to our YouTube Channel to see every episode!\r\r\rWowhead Weekly\r\r\rThis week they're talking about: \rBlizzCon 2015 is announced! They discuss what they're expecting to see, new changes to the booking system, and of course the 2015 Wowhead party!\rLegendary Follower Garona - they're talking about her legendary ability, Maître assassin, and how you can find out just how effective she is on Wowhead's Missions Page. \rThey explain the Legendary Questline boost for alts!\rThey're covering the usual Wowhead site news, so you can see what we've been working on. This week it's lots of smaller things, we've added information to all the pages for toys, pets, mounts and followers so that if you have a linked character on your account, you can see on the page whether you own them or not. Our mission pages also link to other similar missions, so if you want to find all the missions which are a certain ilvl, or treasure missions, you can!\rThey discuss the changes to the Autoclave à réparation automatique and Talisman protecteur de l'élémentaliste - they're just trinket fixes, and not intended to fix the Spirit issues, but what should Blizzard be doing about Spirit? For more information on this, you can check out Hamlet and Dayani's Podcast on Spirit!\rThey're also talking about the 10% damage mitigation added to PvP. It's basically a return of Resilience, so Olivia is very smug, but will it fix the current issues?\rAnd they answer your questions! Come along to the livestream or tweet your questions to Olivia and Perculia if you want them answered!\r\r\rBlackrock Foundry ilvl Increase\rNormally Blizzard doesn't post hotfixes on the weekend, but this one is pretty big! All the loot from Fonderie des Rochenoires, as well as top level "Ethereal" Apexis Gear and all Stage 4 Crafted loot is receiving a +5 level increase. This affects items you already own. \r\rDetails below, and we'll have the database updated with the new item levels when this change goes live:\r\rWe are preparing to deploy a hotfix next week that will increase the item level of all raid drops from all difficulties of the Blackrock Foundry raid.\r\rThe main purpose of this change is to ensure that killing new bosses in the Blackrock Foundry raid feels appropriately rewarding. We are finding that groups coming out of a couple of months in Highmaul could often have an average item level that was just barely shy of the loot dropped by the appropriate difficulty in Foundry. A core part of the experience of progressing through a new raid tier lies in the sense that even if you didn't manage to kill a particular boss this week, the upgrades your raid group gathered along the way will make things smoother and improve your chances the following week.\r\rThis change will be retroactive, affecting existing items that players may have in their possession. Thus, instead of an item level range of 650\/665\/680\/695 for Raid Finder\/Normal\/Heroic\/Mythic Fonderie des Rochenoires, the loot awarded will now be item level 655\/670\/685\/700 respectively. At the same time, we will be increasing the item level of the new highest-tier crafted and Apexis vendor items by 5, in order to keep their power unchanged relative to the Foundry raid itemization.\r\r\rFurther ilvl Clarifications\r\rA few comments in response to some posts so far.\r\rFirst, I wouldn't read much into the use of the word "tier" in the post - it's being used as a synonym for "zone" in this case. The point stands regardless: When you go through a series of learning attempts and wipes to defeat a new boss for the first time, you expect a commensurate reward for doing so. Many players coming out of 2 months in Highmaul were in a situation of having to work to learn and defeat new bosses that dropped loot of roughly the same quality as what they already were wearing. That isn't satisfying and doesn't allow for much power progression.\r\rSecond, the primary point of this change is not to nerf Foundry encounters. If that were the goal, it would have been much simpler to simply nerf the encounters, and we'd taken a more surgical approach to specific encounters. The aim is strictly to improve the reward side of the difficulty:reward ratio.\r\rTo use an example, consider a guild that primarily does Normal mode content and eventually progresses into Heroic. This guild may have been 6\/7N Highmaul by early January; they ventured into Heroic and killed 2-3 bosses there, and then went back and finished off Mar'gok on Normal. Along the way, they also got some item level 670 loot from garrison mission caches. Now, Foundry comes out. Just because this group killed a couple of Heroic Highmaul bosses after two months in the zone doesn't suddenly make them a Heroic guild - they will, appropriately, begin in Normal Foundry. But their average item level with mostly 655 items (some 661 warforged), and some 670 items from Heroic Highmaul, is likely around 661 or 662 as a raid group. And that simply doesn't leave much room for meaningful reward. And replacing a 670 non-set piece with a 665 set piece is likely a power upgrade, but also does not feel particularly satisfying. You can change the difficulties in the example above, and we see the exact same situation with Heroic guilds coming into Heroic Foundry with an average item level in the 675+ range, which again didn't leave much room for improvement.\r\r(Note that this logic really does not apply to Mythic Foundry, but once we're buffing loot from the other difficulties, we must also adjust Mythic in order to keep Mythic drops feeling like an appropriate upgrade over Heroic. Mythic Foundry is still plenty challenging and ranks among the overall hardest raid zones we've designed - an extra few item levels is not going to change that.)\r\rEdit: And yes, the actual stats on the items are of course increasing along with the item level. The point is to improve the actual reward, not smoke and mirrors creating the illusion of one.

Commentaires

Commentaire de Bonyfoot

I dig it. Definitely feel like the upgrades in BRF weren't that rewarding.

Commentaire de ProjectSixam

on 2015-03-14T14:17:38-05:00

Smells like the 2\/2 -> 4\/4 upgrade SoO nerf, to me.\r\rNot that I mind. Stronger gear is always welcome.

Commentaire de Mordredsp

on 2015-03-14T14:36:48-05:00

Will the Legendary Ring also get a boost?

Commentaire de Furanshisuko

on 2015-03-14T14:51:53-05:00

Oh my god, I would love a undead-style garrison too. An awesome feature would be allow us to pick wich racial-style we want to our garrison, of our faction of course (at this point, I don't expect that, like where should our garrison be built (I think they said something about that), but one live of dreams :P)\r\rIs around here any news about if the ring it's going to have something "special"? Like the special effects of the cloack?

Commentaire de Casn

on 2015-03-14T14:54:53-05:00

Will the Legendary Ring also get a boost?\r\rIs legendary ring involved in normal -> heroic -> next raid normal progression? Nope. So answer is: nope.

Commentaire de moosecat11

on 2015-03-14T16:18:00-05:00

This is FANTASTIC news. Currently, much of our group has lost interest in normal BRF because the gear just wasn't an upgrade apart from sort of tier pieces. Many of us were already 90% heroic Highmaul geared. The issue is, because they are bored of it, we're not getting enough practice in normal to make any progress on Heroic.\r\rThis will bring normal BRF up to heroic Highmaul ilvl, which may still not be an upgrade ilvl wise, but will definitely offer some different pieces that may have better stats for our class than the pieces we have, and make tier pieces feel like a real upgrade, and not make me wait to get 2 pieces to equip them. And, it definitely increases the amount of pieces I'd like to get my hands on there (currently, I literally only need one item from normal: pants...and our group never goes to blast furnace ~_~ so everything else is boring for me, loot-wise)\r\rI hope this will encourage our group to continue our journeys on normal so we can learn enough to actually get somewhere on heroic.

Commentaire de Interest

on 2015-03-14T18:10:26-05:00

This seems like a logical approach given the floor of entry for BRF (After all, you need 635 ilvl to enter it on LFR to obtain rewards that were originally a 15 ilvl upgrade from the requirement, as opposed to a whopping 25 for LFR Highmaul).

Pretty beneficial at a personal level too.

Commentaire de Kendrubbin

on 2015-03-14T18:33:02-05:00

A 10% damage reduction in PvP won't change anything, it's a band-aid fix - I still don't know why they haven't yet split PvP and PvE spell-wise, which would lead to far more versatile fixes being possible as one won't affect the other.

Commentaire de Krald

on 2015-03-14T19:58:15-05:00

Ranged attacks, light based like the D3 crusader? you mean a prot pally?

Commentaire de yzq85

on 2015-03-14T20:43:50-05:00

Smells like the 2\/2 -> 4\/4 upgrade SoO nerf, to me.

Not that I mind. Stronger gear is always welcome.

This one's better. You don't have to do anything extra to get the upgrade.

This seems like a logical approach given the floor of entry for BRF (After all, you need 535 ilvl to enter it on LFR to obtain rewards that were originally a 15 ilvl upgrade from the requirement, as opposed to a whopping 25 for LFR Highmaul).

Pretty beneficial at a personal level too.

ilvl is 635.

My question is: Will the LFR sets get an ilvl boost too, since they are currently at ilvl 655?

Commentaire de IcedAssassin

on 2015-03-15T03:54:09-05:00

Whoever came up with this 10% damage mitigation added to PvP needs to be fired. 4 dps cant even kill a healer! Hunters are doing more healing then damage! DMR doesnt work like it was intended! Pvp in general is just straight sloppy and bliz is just being lazy. Get a group together and redo the foundation for pvp. Then, go through every class and balance them! Some examples; Rogues shouldnt get 30s worth of evasions when combined. Arms warriors should have stayed the way they were in MOP (kit wise) with the current mastery buff. Druids shoudnt be healing as mush as they are in balanced and feral. I shouldnt fight a hunter who does 520k damage and 570k healing in arenas. Healing from healers need to be nerfed across the board. And... casters need a little more help surviving melee. For example, Spriests need to be given another tool added to their kit with some lower CDs so they dont die in 15 seconds. I'd be happy to download a 2 hour patch knowing bliz took a giant leap into fixing things instead of tossing out hot fixes that dont help the current situation.

Commentaire de lemanz

on 2015-03-15T04:44:30-05:00

this so STUPID! blizz y u always nerf everything? mythic HM rewards is now same with H BRF rewards?

Commentaire de unstoopified

Commentaire de waynetherogue

on 2015-03-15T07:32:58-05:00

You know they're buffing the gear right?

Commentaire de Graysmith

on 2015-03-15T09:18:13-05:00

I absolutely think there should be an option to have the garrison in all racial architecture styles. Orgrimmar is horrendously ugly, orc architecture is by far the worst in the game so having to have that as your garrison as Horde is quite painful, especially with such pleasant alternatives.\r\rAnd I actually find the Human\/Stormwind architecture style a bit boring. The garrison certainly looks nice enough, but pretty much all the other Alliance architecture styles are more interesting and unique.

Commentaire de Kozzie

on 2015-03-15T10:29:55-05:00

I thought Highmaul and BRF are in the same Tier? HM didn't offer tier gear, to me, I think its disappointing to see them doing this after 1.5 months of BRF having been released. In my opinion, Tier 17 gear - 2p\/4p gear is reason to raid BRF content along with the content. My feeling here is that its blizzard giving into making the content "easier" and forget those of us that have worked through content and experienced the frustrations of wiping. \r\rWelcome to the gimme, gimme, gimme game.

Commentaire de Wownomo

on 2015-03-15T11:56:33-05:00

I've been passing on SOOOOO much heroic BRF gear for my guildies because of whack itemization it wasn't "that" huge of an upgrade .... I'm going to be noticeably behind next week.

Commentaire de Wirxaw

on 2015-03-15T19:08:01-05:00

While I would obviously like the chance to buy crafted gear without trading off ilvl, because BRF loot optimization and RNG suck donkey unmentionables, I can't say I approve of this change. Blizzard should've foreseen it, it's not rocket science, when they make raids overlap like trade spam.\r\rI thought MoP was a gearscore disaster, with 5.4 spanning ilvls from 528 to 585(or something like that). And that was a flex flagship, end-expansion tier.\r\rNow we have an opening "tier" which has ilvl span of 640>706. Seriously? That's almost the same as the ilvl span of the whole WotLK, and it was a pretty filled expansion.\r\rRemember how that stupid Garrosh axe had 2x the damage of old good Shinka? Because they practically doubled, tripled and even quadrupled the stats over the course of one expansion. Tanks started at 350k+ hp, trying not to get oneshotted by Galleon? No probs, SoO tanks went past 1mil without cds(or almost). Dps went from 70-ish k to what.... 500k? That's minmax, but still.\r\rHow was dps during WotLK? 10k-20k, average. Not x5.\r\r\rNo, I am not a vanillaf@g. I just give an example of the first gearscore abomination, in contrast to the modern times.\rThey SQUISHED the ilvl, but we already are way past Cataclysm in terms of stats, and there's a whole expansion ahead. Do they plan to squish it again, just to reset their bloated gearscore of WoD?\r\rOr if WoD was desiged for two tiers, then probably the final ilvl of WoD will be sub-800, and that's it? Just stretch ~200ilvls over 2-3 raids, as opposed to 100> ilvls over...~5? Just so that casuals could grind their way up through the useless difficulties(normal+heroic), and feel rewarded? While Mythic is restricted to the most entitled guilds only and LFR gives all the credit players need(legendary stuff, tiers and weekly quest credit)?\rI stand by my words: Blizzard has killed PvE. It has stretched it to impossible lengths, while restricting actual endgame content.\rCataclysm, the unanimous worst expansion, had probably the BEST PvE design in the entire history of WoW.\rHeroic was accessible in 10\\25, ilvls were the same for all group sizes, raids were abundant and delicate(ok, except for DS, move along), and ilvls were actually very tight. 353>359>378>416, ranging from a "new heroic" to the highest tier. The feeling of reward was still there, but most importantly there was the feeling of continuity, of gear value. As you began raiding, all pieces of 359ish ilvl were valuable and long-lasting.\rNow we need ilvl 645+ to get into HM N, 660 - HM HC, 660 - BRF Normal and, hold it, 680 to actually get a good BRF HC group! Woopie ****ing do. Like that 655 bracers? Don't worry, they are pretty worthless until you grind yourself easy 680, and in between you'll get 665, 670 and then some socket\\warforgeds.\rI can't say it's explicitly bad - the variety of choices. But it's the other extremity. Blizzard have introduced flexible raids, and instead of properly integrating it into current difficulties, they kept it as a separate difficulty, restricted to hell the actual difficulty and nerfed LFR into auto-attack mode. Why not keep LFR as it is, but instead - integrate flexible capacity, make the leader be able to affect it. Instead of forcing the group to fill 25 spots, 40+% of which are filled with mouthbreathers, make it changeable to 15 or 20 upper limit. If the group feels they are good, but new players just drag them down - downscale and keep going. Yes, some people would be left out. But I don't want to believe that significant amount of subscribers are either senile ASDs or clinical retards of all ages. People bloody work and procreate in happy quantities, yet they can't cope with a couple of mechanics and society? Give me a break. The problem of old LFR was that some people were carried and constantly replaced(mimicking the standard guild HR problem), and flexible could solve it.\rThe problem of old normal\\heroic was that normal was demanding to get into, and heroic was actually heroic(save for entry bosses), so few guilds could get proper 10 people attending a few nights a week sharp, much less have a backup roster. Current flexible setups of 2-3-(5-8)\\2-4-(9-12) etc could easily solve it.\rAnd I don't even want to think why did they cater to the oldf@gs and pretended that they want "optimal" balancing by making a strict 20 Mythic. Because it didn't help "anyone". Entitled guilds did it with 40men, 25men and now it's not a problem to downscale to 20. But everyone else, especially those who were good for 10, just not always capable of having the personnel for it - they are shoved up their rears. What the hell for?\r\rOkay, I deviated big time. Point is - they integrated flagship flexible raiding technology which was supposed to revive raiding. Instead - it killed it.\rThey stretched the ilvls to make it feel rewarding, and now they are stretching it even further. Shortly after making a "squish".\r\rHow far will they go with it?

Commentaire de Wirxaw

He is something you terribly lack: logic.Use your head: why was this change made? To balance ilvls. Did the ring need balance? A free 640 ring for any 610-geared player? Doe. A free 680 ring for the same player who spent some time to click buttons? Really. A 690 ring for cutting edge player, decked in 685-ilvl gear? Fitting. A 710 ring for a same cutting edge player in full mythic warforged 706ilvl? Seems legit.

Do you think you need extra 5lvls on your ring to compensate for something? Petition Blizzard, they might reconsider.

Commentaire de Wirxaw

on 2015-03-15T19:15:46-05:00

this so STUPID! blizz y u always nerf everything? mythic HM rewards is now same with H BRF rewards?

Yes, that was part of the problem. How many people were forced to pass their tier pieces or better itemized items, because their 2-boss+mission farmed HM M gear was actually higher ilvl than the current heroic?

Don't concern yourself with HM. Blizzard didn't. How did they describe it some time last year? "People are enjoying the "ogrible" content" or some nonsense like that. It was a bone to gnaw on for people, who got tired of facebook. Its Cutting Edge is the same casual Cutting Edge that used to be Al'akir(figuratively) or Will of the Emperor. It's not a loot-deciding or important raid. Imperator is the retard check, but that's all it is: a check. Now they released BRF and the focus is on how to sell BRF better. What happens to HM now isn't anyone's concern.